If you had to ponder the most powerful alliance in human relations, how much strength would you accord to the “dynamic duo” of a young child and their grandparent? Playing on his celebrated phrase “How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor,” Pope Francis closed his General Audience on Wednesday, […]
In 1976 my daughter was born. I was head-over-heels in love with her. At the time I was a commercial writer for a television station; I remember clicking away on my manual typewriter in time with a new tune by Stevie Wonder: Isn’t She Lovely. To me (and a million other new fathers) that song […]
When I first found it, I wasn’t even sure what it was. I was going through a trunk of personal items that had belonged to my dad when I ran across a little brown jewelry box. Dad passed away when I was just fifteen; I’d gathered an array of his possessions and kept them tucked […]
When I think of grandmothers, I think of fingers. My 96 year old maternal grandmother hardly remembers my name, but I still remember the years I watched her fingers plying the rosary beads one by one for each of her grandchildren. Around her twisty bed post, she’d drape her rose-scented brown rosary, marked with a […]
“Do you know any songs?” I asked my nearly 3-year-old granddaughter as the two us walked hand-in-hand to a nearby store. “Uh huh,” she answered. So I started “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and she joined in, shouting out the next word whenever I paused. Hmmm . . . “Father, Son, Holy Spirit,” I said, and she […]
